BACKGROUND: The prognostic value of peritumoral vascular invasion (PVI) in node negative breast cancer (N-) is a controversial issue. Considerable debate has focused on how PVI should be defined, and the techniques used to detect them have differed considerably from one study to another. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In our study, 167 cases of N- breast cancers were reviewed, with a view to determining whether or not PVI, as defined in the recently published European recommendations, were present. RESULTS: Based on the results of the subsequent statistical study, the presence of PVI was not found to constitute a reliable prognostic index to the outcome of N- breast cancer. CONCLUSION: Referring each case to the data available in the literature, the difficulties encountered when searching for PVI of this kind are described, the results of various studies on the topic are reviewed and whether it is worth pursuing studies along these lines is discussed.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Intraosseous meningioma in a child].

The authors present a case of intra-osseous meningioma in a 10 years old boy, located on the level of the vertex in the fronto-interparietal region, with the shape of a hand mass, painless, free from all neurological, ophtalmological and angiographic signs. The x-rays examination permit a diagnosis of an osteoma of the cranial vault. The surgery enables the exeresis of a large tumor of the vault 3 cm thick, without any attachment to the dura-matter. The histological examination reveals that it is, in fact, an intra-osseous meningioma. From this observation the authors carried out a review of all litterature in this field, only 12 observations are found again, and none of them deal with children. These intra-osseous meningioma develop from Pacchioni granulations included in the diploic region. They bring about handly any clinical signs and the x-rays findings do not enable us to put forward or suggest the diagnostic of intra-osseous meningioma.

Age Factors↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Intracerebral medulloepithelioma with a long survival.

This report concerns a 3-month-old boy where neuroimaging examination showed a large, well-circumscribed, mildly heterogeneous tumor arising in the left ventricle. Pathological findings were compatible with a medulloepithelioma. A survey of published cases of medulloepitheliomas showed this tumor to be highly malignant, possibly displaying the entire range of differentiation from embryonal primitive neuroepithelium to mature cells and usually involving the cerebral hemispheres with a very poor prognosis in this location. On the other hand, medulloepitheliomas occurring in the eye or the orbit generally benefit from a gross-total resection and may present a good prognosis. Curiously, the patient reported here is doing well 7 years after the resection without any postoperative treatment. The exclusive intraventricular location of the tumor and its gross-total resection clearly seems to have contributed to this unusual recovery.

Brain Neoplasms↗